Cifuentes OUT

[Richard]

Enzo is an elite coach who we got very lucky with. He only spent 1 season with us because he has shown his level is above the championship. 

 

Marti is an average championship manager at an average championship team. 

 

I was never that enamoured by Marti's appointment. He's wedded to the Cruyff way when even Pep is playing 4 centre backs, direct wingers and a big ****er up front. He's not good enough to coach total football correctly, which has largely been found out in global football anyway. 

 

However he's also forced to play Faes and Vestergaard because we literally don't have another fit centre back? He has to play Thomas because we don't have another fit left back? We spent £0 in the summer shopping loans in the bargain basement. I don't rate Marti but I also don't blame him - he's been given **** all support and at least he actually really wanted the job. 

[Bayfox]

55 minutes ago, MC Prussian said:

 

The team is bad, with a few flickers of hope (James for example, Fatawu, or even Mavididi). Our back four needs revamping (and has done so for months, even prior to this season). Faes is still here and thinks he's David Luis (when he's definitely not). Our central midfield is the most expensive in the entire league, but Skipp and WInks have been (major) letdowns. The sooner Soumaré is gone, the better. Then there's Daka's scoring record.

 

Yes, Cifuentes has inherited a lot of dross. However, I do expect a manager to introduce his own style of play.

WIth Cifuentes, I see no such thing on the pitch. Again: What tactics does he deploy, what roles do his players have on the pitch? All I see are ten on-fielders passing the ball around, trying to make something happen. Our build-up play is so slow, There's little attacking intent, and most of the time, the aim is to play the ball to either winger. In the meantime, the remaining midfielders and our "striker" are so slow to get anywhere near the box, so it's all for nothing.

Our attacks through the middle are super-rare. Imagine what we could do with a few more cut-through passes to Daka (or maybe even Carranza), just like against Stoke.

 

Cifuentes wants us to play like Barcelona. Problem is, we don't have the players for it.

Some very valid points but I'm told its Top that wants us to play like Barca.

[Fox92]

3 minutes ago, JimJams said:

Saints fan after the 3-0 loss:

"Leicester dominated us two years ago on both occasions, but they very much reminded me of a Martin side tonight. No fight off the ball to win it back and didn't know what to do with the ball when they had it other than pass for passing sake and by that time we can defend comfortably."

 

Sheff Utd Fan after tthe 3-2 loss:

"Leicester played slow sideways passing tippy tappy possession football with zero intent to try and score…..reminded me of us under Selles."

 

 

It's also quite interesting to note the similarities in attitudes among fans at Southampton where they were doing shit under Still and there were a number of fans saying the same thing that some of ours are saying now, that the quality isn't there in the squad and that the manager has nothing to work with, which doesn't really wash when the replacement comes in and not only wins his first 4 of 5, but has also got them scoring 15 goals in 5 games which has more than doubled their seasons tally so far.

I never got the whole “he is working with a terrible squad” stance from certain people. This squad is better than mid table and as Southampton have found out a better manager, new ideas, different things has turned into better results with the same squad. It is possible, always has been possible, that some players in this squad are poor but the manager is also poor. It’s been clear for a long time to me that the manager has no clue what he’s doing.

[filthyfox]

Well...   he is still here.

 

As is Dudkin and Flop

[DAS Boot]

He isn’t very good but I have zero confidence that if the club pulled the trigger and got him out, they wouldn’t get someone better.

 

In fact they’d probably make it worse.

[woznotwos]

15 hours ago, Mendi said:

Sack him. Who comes in than ?

Dilemma, it will leave us with even less or zero money in the transfer market. New manager or the odd new player? We are so tied at the minute with this ridiculous wage bill we have. 

[TeamRocket]

Always felt like getting him was backward step in all honesty. 

[ClaphamFox]

9 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

I never got the whole “he is working with a terrible squad” stance from certain people. This squad is better than mid table and as Southampton have found out a better manager, new ideas, different things has turned into better results with the same squad. It is possible, always has been possible, that some players in this squad are poor but the manager is also poor. It’s been clear for a long time to me that the manager has no clue what he’s doing.

When successive managers try and fail with the same squad, it’s natural to wonder whether the problem might actually be the squad and not the manager. Our squad might be ‘better than mid table’ in terms of footballing ability, but that won’t count for much if the culture at Seagrave is so rotten that they’re completely unreceptive to new ideas and a demand for higher standards.

Edited 30 November 2025 by ClaphamFox

[VictorFox]

2pm

[teblin]

2 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

When successive managers try and fail with the same squad, it’s natural to wonder whether the problem might actually be the squad and not the manager. Our squad might be ‘better than mid table’ in terms of footballing ability, but that won’t count for much if the culture at Seagrave is so rotten that they’re completely unreceptive to new ideas and a demand for higher standards.

I agree about the squad but not sure how Marti survives. 

[ClaphamFox]

2 minutes ago, teblin said:

I agree about the squad but not sure how Marti survives. 

Nor do I. But if we sack him today I will find it hard to muster any excitement because I have no faith whatsoever that we’ll appoint a better replacement. 

[Richmondfox]

17 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

When successive managers try and fail with the same squad, it’s natural to wonder whether the problem might actually be the squad and not the manager. Our squad might be ‘better than mid table’ in terms of footballing ability, but that won’t count for much if the culture at Seagrave is so rotten that they’re completely unreceptive to new ideas and a demand for higher standards.

It’s both I feel. The managers have been playing JV and letting him control the style and tempo. Get rid of JV & Faes at the back and the problems we cause ourselves have been removed. 
 

The managers we pick aren’t good enough to identify and correct it. 

[AjcW]

Just popped another one of his inspirational post match musings on social…. Yay….

[Claudio Fannieri]

35 minutes ago, Bayfox said:

Some very valid points but I'm told its Top that wants us to play like Barca.

Somebody needs to ask him a very valid question do you prefer to try and play like Man City /Barca or do you want to be successful playing exciting high intensity football that the fanbase can relate to and really get behind even when results don’t go our way. 

[Ricey]

I can’t muster any enthusiasm for sacking him because I know full well his replacement will be another Cruyff fan boy. Russell Martin, Michael Carrick etc…they all “like to play football” and they will all fail.

 

I don’t want us to go full Brexit-ball, but the next manager has to set stronger standards in regards to attitudes and he has to pull us away from this slow, passive, low-press, indirect football that we’ve seen for a number of years.

 

We are not going to tiki-taka our way back to being an established Premier League team.

[Globalfox]

Winks at fault for the first goal, better performance when winks pulled second half. Let’s drop him for 5 games see how it goes. We need to replace Vestergaard and Faes as soon as possible. Choudray has played for 7 managers and none of them rated him enough to keep him bin him as soon as possible. With these 4 gone I believe we can build a better ethic and give a manager a fair chance. They are the root poison around the club.

[The Year Of The Fox]

43 minutes ago, Bayfox said:

Some very valid points but I'm told its Top that wants us to play like Barca.

That tw*t knows fcuk all about football anyway 

[Ricey]

1 minute ago, Globalfox said:

Winks at fault for the first goal, better performance when winks pulled second half. Let’s drop him for 5 games see how it goes. We need to replace Vestergaard and Faes as soon as possible. Choudray has played for 7 managers and none of them rated him enough to keep him bin him as soon as possible. With these 4 gone I believe we can build a better ethic and give a manager a fair chance. They are the root poison around the club.

Only problem with dropping Winks is that he will start Soumare, who has and will always let us down. Don’t let one second half performance where the opposition gave him lots of time and space fool anyone.

[Groby_Blue]

54 minutes ago, Richard said:

Enzo is an elite coach who we got very lucky with. He only spent 1 season with us because he has shown his level is above the championship. 

 

Marti is an average championship manager at an average championship team.

Agree with this. People keep saying that it's a similar squad to what Enzo had but he still had Vardy, Nacho, KDH, Ndidi and James Justin to name five. Enzo wouldn't have won the league with this squad but we'd at least be in the playoffs. 

 

What Enzo is is a motivator, much like MON. He gets the very best out of what he has to work with. Look at Winks under Enzo and now. 

 

And after a hightly motivational manager, we've had Cooper, RVN and now Marti. 

 

Besides all the possession vs intensity comments, we needs someone who will put the belief back into these dossers. That must be the first priority. 

Edited 30 November 2025 by Groby_Blue

[Claudio Fannieri]

Marti clearly isn’t going to recover this situation with this current group of players whether that is because he hasn’t been strong enough in delivering his philosophy and getting the players to buy into it, which I believe was what we witnessed against Fiorentina, or hasn’t had the strength to manage the cliques and player power within the squad or managing upwards in particular if he is being influenced or instructed to play certain players or play a certain style. Either way his inability to manage the dynamics effectively means he is likely to lose his job 

 

as others have said it’s probably needed at this stage as we are in free fall however my anger is more directed to certain elements of the squad and decision makers who have overseen a decline in culture that has been

allowed to manifest itself and the drop off in standards and results that have followed. 

[LcFc_Smiv]

41 minutes ago, Bayfox said:

Some very valid points but I'm told its Top that wants us to play like Barca.

Surely this is obvious to everyone, we only recruit one style of manager, Cooper being the exception but he was very clearly told it had to be possession based football. We are recruiting coaches to suit a style of play rather than managers who possess qualities as a leader which is probably why we have so many issues off the pitch in terms of leadership and holding the players to a certain standard leading to the pathetic displays we see on it. Boggles my mind that no one in the club can accept we are a far better team when we actually try and go forwards and threaten the opposition goal rather than their possession stats. Even this bunch have something about them when we aren't so obsessed with spending 10 minutes playing it between the two centre backs and holding midfielder.

[Walshy5]

Why hasn't this twat gone yet?

[Richmondfox]

4 minutes ago, Globalfox said:

Winks at fault for the first goal, better performance when winks pulled second half. Let’s drop him for 5 games see how it goes. We need to replace Vestergaard and Faes as soon as possible. Choudray has played for 7 managers and none of them rated him enough to keep him bin him as soon as possible. With these 4 gone I believe we can build a better ethic and give a manager a fair chance. They are the root poison around the club.

I think Winks is the easy target and part of the chaos, but that was all on JV.  He was the trigger by pissing around and inviting the press into the box. His choices then caused the pressure for the other clowns. Mav for some reason thought it was a good idea to pass into no one in the box and Winks first instinct is to not put his foot through the ball. 
 

Morgan, Hugh, Fuchs, Albrighton, or any player with half a brain and sense of urgency would’ve cleared it.  It all comes down to the main clown JV. He invites the press, Fuchs up and passing it to others.  

 

There is nothing wrong with controlling the play but this team has too many idiots or ego that doesn’t match their ability. The manager won’t be asking them to allow a press in the box then try and turn your way out of it. But the manager has to stop these mistakes. 

 

I feel the pissing around is even worse under Marti, they are getting pressed and losing it more often than they did against Prem players. 

[Corky]

19 minutes ago, Ricey said:

I can’t muster any enthusiasm for sacking him because I know full well his replacement will be another Cruyff fan boy. Russell Martin, Michael Carrick etc…they all “like to play football” and they will all fail.

 

I don’t want us to go full Brexit-ball, but the next manager has to set stronger standards in regards to attitudes and he has to pull us away from this slow, passive, low-press, indirect football that we’ve seen for a number of years.

 

We are not going to tiki-taka our way back to being an established Premier League team.

Isn't it still the case that the hierarchy want heavy possession football as the basis for appointing someone?

[Claudio Fannieri]

Saw this post by Darren Eadie on X and think it’s a very fair assessment of where we are, Marti isn’t an elite coach but this group or a good proportion checked out of the club a long time ago and I think that has made his role almost impossible.